CHAPTER 2: MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS

Cordelia Chase wasn’t supposed to be here.

She had her own place in Silver Lake—Pearson Arms, apartment 212, with Phantom Dennis doing his ghostly roommate thing and a bed that didn’t smell like haunted hotel linens. But tonight she’d made a decision after the last vision had dropped her to her knees in the lobby, nose bleeding, skull splitting like it wanted to crack open and spill her brains across the floor. She hadn’t called Wes. Hadn’t called Gunn. She’d just looked at Angel across the desk and said, low and fierce, “I’m staying the night. Don’t make it a thing.”

He hadn’t. He never did with her secrets anymore.

Now she stood in the doorway in ratty sleep shorts and one of his old flannel shirts—stolen from the laundry pile because it smelled like safety and she was too damn tired to pretend otherwise—hair loose and still damp from the world’s quickest shower. The single bulb overhead painted everything in harsh shadows, turning the training dummies into silent judges.

She cleared her throat. “Hey, Tall, Dark, and Nocturnal. Some of us are actually heading to bed like normal people. Or, you know, normal people who decided not to drive back to Silver Lake after a vision tried to rearrange their gray matter.”

Angel stopped mid-punch, knuckles flexing, black T-shirt clinging to the lines of his back. He turned, eyes dark and careful, the way they’d been since she’d told him, now a few weeks ago. Just you. No one else. The visions were killing her. Slowly. Viciously. And the secret between them had started pulling them into this—whatever this was—closer than they had any right to be.

He nodded toward the mats. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Visions don’t exactly tuck you in with a lullaby and a warm glass of ‘you’re not dying, dummy.’” She sauntered in like she owned the place, because Cordelia Chase did not do fragile. Not even when her hands wanted to shake. “I figured if I’m crashing upstairs in one of the guest rooms tonight—don’t get any ideas, it’s just practical—I might as well check that you’re not down here turning into a really tall, really broody gargoyle.”

A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth, gone before it could stick. “Practical.”

“Shut up.” She dropped onto the mat beside where he’d been standing, back against the cool wall, knees drawn up. Not quite touching him when he sank down next to her. Close enough to feel the absence of his body heat, that vampire stillness that should’ve been creepy but felt like the only steady thing left in her world. “I’m serious, Angel. Don’t go all broody-protector on me. I’m not some damsel waiting for your soul to go pfft again.”

Her hands shook when she said it. She tucked them under her thighs, but of course he noticed. He noticed everything.

“Cordy…”

“No.” The snark came out sharp, the way it always did when the fear tried to creep in. “I told you because I had to tell someone, okay? Not because I want you playing undead night watchman. I’ve got this. I’ve always got this.”

Except she didn’t. Not when the migraines came like knives behind her eyes, carving out pieces of her one vision at a time. Because Angel wouldn’t look at her with pity. Angel would just sit here in the dark with her and carry it.

He shifted, shoulder almost brushing hers. The air between them thickened, heavy with everything they weren’t saying. She mattered—more than he could put words to, more than he’d let himself admit until the visions started carving her away piece by piece. It felt like he was about to lose part of himself, this slow, inevitable bleed of her life, and the realization sat heavy in his chest like old guilt he couldn’t outrun. He’d been teetering on the edge of it for longer than he wanted to think about. Not quite over. Not yet. His gaze flicked to her mouth for half a second, then away. Fast. Like even looking felt like tempting the curse that already loomed over them both.

“You’re not alone in this,” he said, voice low and rough, the way it got when the broody thing cracked open into truth. “Not anymore.”

Cordelia laughed, but it came out shaky. “Yeah, well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Us. This.” She gestured vaguely between them, the space that felt smaller every secret they kept. “I’m dying, Angel. Slowly. Messily. And you’re… you. Mr. One-True-Moment-of-Happiness-and-Poof, Hello-Angelus. We can’t even sit here without it turning into some tragic opera where everybody ends up stabbed or soulless or both.”

His jaw tightened. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Famous last words from the guy who’s been undead since the eighteen-hundreds.” She bumped her knee against his—just enough contact to spark, not enough to name it. “I mean it. Go brood somewhere else. I’m fine.”

She wasn’t. They both knew it.

He stayed anyway.

The late-night talk stretched into a closeness neither of them could name. Beyond simple friendship. Not yet love. Just two people in the basement of a haunted hotel, trading snark and silence while the city slept above them and the visions kept carving. Closer than they’d ever been. Farther from safe than they’d ever admit.

Cordelia closed her eyes and let the quiet settle over her like one of his stolen shirts—warm enough to pretend, for a little while, that tomorrow might not hurt.

But it would.

It always did.

~ NEXT CHAPTER ~

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